


Narcissus Pseudonarcissus

by somuchforbaggles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, M/M, POV Castiel, gardener!Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somuchforbaggles/pseuds/somuchforbaggles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two sure facts about this Spring: One, the daffodils are blooming late this year, and two, Castiel is still in love with his next door neighbour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcissus Pseudonarcissus

The daffodils were blooming late this year, Castiel noted with disappointment. Winter had overstayed its welcome, much like his mother usually did when she came to check up on him, but the former was far worse because it meant that the first sign of spring would become…well, Castiel didn’t know, but they would perhaps become the second sign, if the sheep were ready to birth their lambs.

He stood in his near-bare garden, a hand on a hip and the other in his hair, surveying the lack of colour (bar green) and listening out for birds, for bees, for anything to tell him that nature was putting its efforts into spring instead of snowstorms.

"Hey, neighbour," a sunny voice greeted. Castiel looked to the fence, which Dean, his neighbour, was leaning over. Well, Castiel had been thinking about the birds and the bees. 

"Hello, Dean." He squinted as he nodded at Dean, the sun shining through the blanket of clouds above them and blinding him for a moment. Of course, it could have been his neighbour’s grin he was blinded by. Castiel wouldn’t have been surprised at all if all the flowers growing in his garden bloomed then, as Dean lit up everything within fifty feet of his smile.

Okay, so maybe Castiel had the minor issue of being in love with his next door neighbour.

Dean glanced at him through his lashes - something that Castiel had grown to loathe because in his fantasies, that was the look Dean gave him while stripping of his clothes - and leaned a little further over the fence before he said, “Look, you’re probably gonna think I’m really stupid for askin’ this, but…”

"Go on," urged Castiel with an encouraging smile. He didn’t know much about the man, but he knew that Dean was certainly not stupid.

"I mean, I thought I’d ask you because you’re the flower guy, you know, I always see you out here, and I figure that you know your stuff, so - yeah, anyway, the uh, the question." Dean rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously. "What are those yellow flowers? You know, the ones that look like trumpets with fancy collars."

Castiel paused for a moment.  _Yellow flowers, trumpets with fancy collars…_ He gave a short laugh when he realised what exactly Dean had just very aptly described, and walked over to the fence, stifling a smile all the way.

"Daffodils," he said simply. "You’re thinking of daffodils."

Narrowing his grass-green eyes (the initial cause of Castiel’s escalated crush), Dean stood straight and folded his arms. “You’re laughing at me,” he pouted.

The pout did it. Castiel laughed outright, something he never did, and promptly clapped a hand over his mouth.

"You’re laughing at me again!" Dean exclaimed both petulantly and amusedly.

"Only because you pouted, something I have only seen my eight-year-old niece do when she doesn’t get her way."

"You callin’ me an eight-year-old?"

Castiel quickly shook his head, but on Dean’s crooked smirk, realised that the two of them were engaging in  _banter_. He’d never been brave enough to even attempt getting this far before. And he supposed that it he had journeyed too far to turn back now, so he propped his elbows on the wooden fence between them and took a few seconds to absorb the feeling Dean’s smirk gave him.

The smirk faded, and Dean rubbed the back of his neck again. “So, uh, your niece, huh? She the girl I see playin’ out here sometimes?”

Castiel raised a brow.

"Oh God, that came out wrong," blurted Dean, panic spreading across his sun-kissed face.

 _Even the sun makes exceptions for him in the winter,_  Castiel thought. 

"I’m not a - I would never - I don’t  _watch_  her like that, God no, I just look out my window and she’s there,” Dean tried to explain, the words unable to stop pouring out of his mouth until he firmly shut it.

"Yes, she’s my niece," nodded Castiel. "I’ve been trying to teach her the names of each plant and flower, but she doesn’t seem too interested, so I let her play."

"You’re a good uncle."

"Thank you."

It was quiet for a few beats, save for the sound of the wind rushing through the grass and their hair.

"You know, I’d be interested in learning the names of the plants and flowers," Dean mumbled, casually (or shyly) glancing away and kicking a mound of earth. "So maybe I could give this thing I call a garden a makeover."

With a smile, Castiel said, “You’d be a fine gardener, Dean.”

Dean blushed. “Thanks, Cas.”

Their eyes met, and for a moment, Castiel felt as though he could fly over the fence and kiss the sky before he came back to Earth and kissed his neighbour too.

"You know, uh, I’m real happy she’s only your niece," Dean said quietly, shattering the threat of a daydream. "I thought she might have been yours, and that you had a wife or a husband or something."

"No, I’m married to my garden," Castiel half-joked, his heart beating faster as Dean came to lean on the fence again, right next to him. His mind cleared as those handsome features were suddenly inches away from his face. Castiel wanted to surge forward, to run away, to hop over the divide and check the fertility of Dean’s soil, to stop making innuendoes of innocent gardening tasks, but he did none of those things. He stayed where he was, rooted in place by his tree trunk legs, and tried to think back to the original subject to forget the tension that he was obviously imagining.

"Um…" He started well, better than he thought he would, anyway. "Daffodils. You wanted to know about daffodils?"

"Oh," said Dean, his face falling slightly and his eyes raising to Castiel’s - wait, where had they been before? "Yeah, daffodils."

The flower sounded beautiful on Dean’s lips, and Castiel hoped that he really would get to teach Dean the rest of his garden, if only to listen to him speak the names of every individual plant and flower.

Dean shrugged. “I just remember hearing you get excited about them the other week. You were talking to your tree”- a small smile crept onto his face -“and you were saying that come March, you wouldn’t be able to see the green for the yellow, or something like that, and it’s March, and…I don’t know. I just wanted to know what made you happy.”

"You wanted to know what made me happy."

Dean’s hand wavered, and Castiel thought it might be itching to slap its owner’s forehead, judging by the scrunched up face.

"I know it sounds weird, but -"

Castiel’s hand wandered out to ease Dean’s shaking one. It was braver and more forward than his heart was, that was for sure, and before Castiel could stop his mouth from copying his hand, it asked without tremble, “Would you like to know what else makes me happy?”

Staring wide-eyed at Castiel’s hand atop his, Dean dragged his gaze up to see his neighbour’s gentle smile and nodded.

"Seeing the bees pollinate my flowers makes me happy," Castiel began as he rubbed a thumb over the back of Dean’s hand. "Planting the seeds for a new flower makes me happy; talking to my tree makes me happy, and when I see you over the fence, that makes me happy too."

"That makes me happy too," Dean declared in a tiny voice. He flipped his palm up beneath Castiel’s and squeezed, bringing Castiel’s hand up to his mouth to place his lips on the back of it, once, twice, three times, all while nervously gazing into Castiel’s eyes, which were reflecting the sliver of blue sky above them. 

Before either of them could do or say anything more, they were interrupted the the calls of an eight-year-old girl.

"Uncle Cas! Uncle Cas! We’re surprising you!"

Castiel regretfully tore away from what had to be the most perfect moment of his life to gather his niece in his arms and peck her on the crown of her head. “I can see that, Claire,” he said, awkwardly waving at a sheepish Jimmy, who wasn’t so keen as running as fast as his daughter.

He glanced over his shoulder to search for green eyes and dirty blonde hair styled by nothing but the wind, but Dean was gone.

Castiel tried not to let his heart sink too low. After all, he had to be bright for his family, who would only report to his mother if he wasn’t in high spirits.

Later, when Claire had exhausted herself and when Jimmy reached the bottom of his coffee mug, they disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared, and finally Castiel allowed himself to run his fingers over the small expanse of skin that Dean’s lips had touched and to overthink what had happened with him.

But before he could even start, there was a knock on the door. Claire must have forgotten some of her colouring pencils, or maybe her sweater. Castiel opened the door, ready to smile for his niece and search for some unknown belonging, but it wasn’t Claire at all, or Jimmy. 

It was a breathless Dean, clutching three muddy daffodils.

"I looked all over town for some," he panted, his cheeks pink from the crisp air, or exertion, or both.

Castiel looked at the yellow trumpets with fancy collars in awe. He gingerly took them from Dean’s dirty hands, and on second thought took one of Dean’s dirty hands too, and led him into the kitchen to put the flowers in water.

"Thank you," he said with a tiny, genuine smile. "But you didn’t have to go to all this trouble just for me."

"Yeah, I did," Dean replied with a fierce stare, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Thank you."

"You already said that."

"Thank you," repeated Castiel, murmuring it once again against Dean’s lips. "Thank you."

Dean’s cheeks pinkened again, and Castiel smirked, loving that he knew exactly what the cause was of that blush.

After Castiel washed Dean’s hands, he pulled them around the garden, saying the name of all the few flowers in bloom and making Dean recite them, and when they went round again, Castiel rewarded him with a kiss every time he correctly remembered a name.

Dean never forgot the names of any flowers, and after the lesson had finished, Castiel introduced him to the grass, and more importantly, to as many grass stains as he could.

**Author's Note:**

> Read it on [tumblr](http://ghostran.tumblr.com/post/78435841501/the-daffodils-were-blooming-late-this-year)


End file.
